Indie supergroup Mister Heavenly is made up of Nick Thorburn from Islands, Joe Plummer from Modest Mouse and Honus Honus from Man Man. Sometimes Michael Cera plays bass at their live shows. Sometimes I can hardly believe that this band exists.
But then they release a free single with two tracks on it. One titled “Mister Heavenly” and one titled “Pineapple Girl.” Both songs are pretty great, tons of energy kicks the laid back beach sound in the balls. Thorburn’s vocals are instantly recognizable, giving the tracks the Islands feel I was hoping for.
It’s odd that Akron/Family’s most listenable psychedelic rock record to date would have the most bizarre back story that I’ve heard in a while. We’ll get to that later. The most important thing you need to know about ‘Akron/Family II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT,’ you will learn in the first couple minutes of the first track. What you will learn is that this is nothing like their any of their previous releases.
The opening track, “Silly Bears,” is a rock song. It’s fuzzed out and a little weird, but it’s not folky-new-weird-america type shit, though some of that sound is still present. But this album is the real deal. The different locations that band used to record the album definitely show on some of the tracks. Sun-drenched island guitars are present, but don’t define the record.
You’ll recognize the old Akron/Family in tracks like “A AAA O A WAY” and “Cast A Net” but tracks like “Another Sky” and “Light Emerges” show immense maturity and complexity without freaking out too many potential listeners. It’s a simultaneously conflicted and cohesive album.
If you’re a fan of the band, if you’ve brushed them off in the past, or even if you’ve never heard of them: you can enjoy this record with an open mind. Listen to and download a track from the album below. Keep reading to see the insane press release that came with the record.
As if I couldn’t be more excited for Iron & Wine’s upcoming record ‘Kiss Each Other Clean,’ Daytrotter posted a video of the band’s entire session yesterday. This is a first for the folks over at Daytrotter, but I hope they continue to do this with future sessions.
Creepy album art aside, Edmonton’s HAPPY TRENDY has released a very solid piece of music (for free, I might add) to kick off the new year. HAPPY TRENDY is a new project of Dylan Khotin-Foote, formerly of Kumon Plaza. Dylan’s monotonous voice is perfect against the simple synth lines and casio beats of the backdrop.
I love the amount of remixing that is going on between independent artists lately. By the summer we can probably do a “Six Degrees of Remix Separation” between this new generation of bedroom bands. Check out some more Casa del Mirto on their Myspace where they have two albums up for free download.
Listen to and download Brothertiger’s remix below.
A little over a week later and Mike is dropping SoundCloud bombs all over the place. I wouldn’t describe the tracks as having a “full band” sound, but they’re bouncier, sassier and darker than the compressed summery sounds that we’ve grown to love. Continue reading →
Many people are calling ‘The Social Network’ the best movie of 2010. The Collector’s Edition DVD / Blu-Ray of the film was released yesterday with two commentary audio tracks that provided a lot of insight to the making of the film. Here are 8 things I found to be the most interesting.
8. Armie Hammer played both Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. Kinda. An actor named Josh Pence would stand in for whichever twin was out of focus and his face was replaced with Hammer’s in post-production.
7. Jesse Eisenberg admits during the commentary that he was suffering from panic attacks and depression during filming. He brings up feeling freaked out about filming the epic opening scene, recants an incident involving an anti-depressant pill, and even drops his shrink’s name in the documentary “How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?”
He also admitted to having trouble filming any scene in which Zuckerberg’s character was supposed to act “happy,” saying he wasn’t sure what to do in the zipline pool scene that happens right after several characters in the film move to Palo Alto.
A couple weeks back BrothertigerremixedKeep Shelly in Athens’ track “Running Out of You” and last night KSiA decided to return the favor on Brothertiger’s latest track “Evening Glow”
The remix is a harder hitting affair that puts the catchy synth line from the original to the side and focuses on swirling layers of tweaked vocals and some grimy bass. Listen and download below.
Transatlantic beat making at its finest. This urban Postal Service-esque project between Manchester’s up and coming sample artist Star Slinger and Tennessee’s Teams is a pretty stellar little compilation. Listen to and download “Punch Drunk Love” below.
Online collaborations between producers Star Slinger (repping the UK for Manchester) and Teams (standing up for America from Knoxville, Tennessee) reward the fruits of online labor: six blog-rockin’, booty-shakin’ rippers, culled from vinyl-sourced samples of R&B and modern soul classics and reworked, twerked, and shimmied into the matrix of hip hop rhythms, sunshine, and classy, electro-clipped states of mind. The work of these two individuals permeates the original material up, under and around, until you’re not entirely sure how you’ll ever listen to the dusties in your collection again without treatments like the ones provided here. Good times for the summertime state of mind, no matter what time of year you’re livin’ in.
A week before the release of Real Estate member Matthew Mondanile’s newest album Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics he’s released an “vinyl bonus version” of the track “Killin’ the Vibe” which already features Dent May on sexy backup vocal duty. The new version guest stars Panda Bear from the once-prolific psychedelic sensation Animal Collective.
